Patriotism is the flavor of the day. Social media is fun place- an amazing place to be a patriot. The time found between visits to Cafe Coffee Day and a well-stocked fridge with supply of beer on a dry day, a strong, eloquent vocabulary makes a good post on Independence Day.

The ease of endorsement has made everything much commonplace as well. Many times I post a blog and in a split-second, I get a favorite. It is obvious that the post has not been read. I do not mind it much. It expands the reach of the post. Getting followers on a platform like Twitter is some kind of crazy algorithm and we have experts called SEO experts and Social Media Experts who understand that. But for a person to begin believing himself, or herself beyond what one is really stupid. There is a Twitter celebrity, who at first tweet of opposition, retorts with 'Moron'. His arguments begins and ends with the word. Insult is his chosen form of debate and his followers bend down in musical symphony, awed by…

The Sun was bright, but
its bright, white light, under which the rugged Earth shone, like youth in its
prime, carried no warmth of love. The chill which seeped through the spine,
overpowered the mild struggle, almost half heartedly put up by the splendid
rays, landing on the arrogantly and audaciously rising mountain. Lance Naik Narender Singh looked out
of the window of his barrack. The view was lovely, with only two things
obstructing a complete surrender of human mind to the surreal beauty
outside-Fierce, unnerving cold and the constant fear. The mountain spread
before the eyes, like an enormous giant, with arms spread wide, the blues of
the far, merging into to greens spread below them. He had tried to explain what
he viewed outside his window, many times earlier to Titali, his wife, in the
village back home. She had never been beyond the dusty lanes of the small
village, in the hinterlands of the country, about two hundred kilometers from
the capital. She would hear him describe …

I am many things. I run, I write, I work. But out of all the
dimensions of my life, it is writing I love the most. It is not only because my
writing is the only part of me which will survive. It is because when I write,
I put out a part of me on the paper. I am asked many times why I write in a
peculiar way, with a certain sense of gloom hovering over it. It is because
that is the way I think. It is the same with most writers and poets. We write, we
breathe, we live. We die with every word we write and in those word, we sense
the deepest sense of life. Writing is not easy. Literacy is far, far different
from writing. Though, we do mix the two often. A strong vocabulary, a panache
for words, the knowledge of some secret formula, lighter words, student life, young
love. Writing is all that and more. Writing isn’t an alchemist’s magic formula,
it is the agony of a heart which knows little and feels more. That heart, the thumping sense of our being thunders in the
silent nights, laden wit…

Monsoons are here. The day is a typical Monsoon day, all fresh,
washed clean day, as if ready for proper parting of hairs and to be sent to the
school. It is a perfect day. I slept through most of it. In between, I thought about what the day signifies. It is
Friendship day. I am at the age, on the wrong side of forty. There are articles
in the newspapers proclaiming that forty is the new twenty. But than those are
just pretentious words of solace as the life slides faster than before. I feel
pre-historic, ancient on the days like this. It is not like we used to jog with
the dinosaurs in our days. But we did not have the days like in our days. I still remember going to Archies, near Sharda Chowk in Raipur
in 1993. It was a new entity and was relegated, me and my Engineering roommate
had first encountered Valentine day there. My room-mate, Arvind Gupta from
Balaghat, was freshly in love and thought of buying a card. We both looked at
each other, clueless of what it meant. That is the ti…

I finished reading The Book Thief to my seven year old, though
in bits and pieces, and then closed it with watching the magnificent movie
adaptation today afternoon. The weather was kind, her interest was up, having
read the book and it was almost ethereal, in a happy way. I kept on thinking
why did I watch this movie with Nonu. I thought about it and wanted to share. Not that I do not watch movies often with her. I am a movie
freak and the weekend with no new releases leaves me uneasy. Between me and my
daughter, we keep on watching all the animation movies, much to the chagrin of
her mother. But watching The Book Thief was different. It struck me when I read another “All The Life We cannot See”
right after I read “The Book Thief”. These two books are about World War II,
these two books are about death. Should I expose a seven year old to the
depressing sadness of the war? But no, war is not only about death. War is also about hope,
about survival, about coming out of war. These two s…